A Dictionary and Grammatical Sketch of Dagaare
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A dictionary and grammatical sketch of Dagaare Mark Ali Scott Grimm Adams Bodomo language African Language Grammars science press and Dictionaries 4 Chief Editor: Adams Bodomo Editor: Firmin Ahoua In this series: 1. Schrock, Terrill B. The Ik language: Dictionary and grammar sketch. 2. Brindle, Jonathan. A dictionary and grammatical outline of Chakali. 3. Friesen, Dianne. A grammar of Moloko. 4. Ali, Mark, Scott Grimm & Adams Bodomo. A dictionary and grammatical sketch of Dagaare. ISSN: 25124862 A dictionary and grammatical sketch of Dagaare Mark Ali Scott Grimm Adams Bodomo language science press Mark Ali, Scott Grimm & Adams Bodomo. 2021. A dictionary and grammatical sketch of Dagaare (African Language Grammars and Dictionaries 4). Berlin: Language Science Press. This title can be downloaded at: http://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/245 © 2021, Mark Ali, Scott Grimm & Adams Bodomo Published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Licence (CC BY 4.0): http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ISBN: 978-3-96110-306-5 (Digital) 978-3-98554-002-0 (Hardcover) ISSN: 2512-4862 DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.4501694 Source code available from www.github.com/langsci/245 Collaborative reading: paperhive.org/documents/remote?type=langsci&id=245 Cover and concept of design: Ulrike Harbort Typesetting: Scott Grimm Proofreading: Alena Witzlack, Amr El-Zawawy, Andreas Hölzl, Aniefon Daniel, Felix Hoberg, Jean Nitzke, Jeroen van de Weijer, Ludger Paschen, Steven Moran, Tom Bossuyt, Yvonne Treis Fonts: Libertinus, Arimo, DejaVu Sans Mono Typesetting software:Ǝ X LATEX Language Science Press xHain Grünberger Str. 16 10243 Berlin, Germany langsci-press.org Storage and cataloguing done by FU Berlin Contents Preface iii Acknowledgments vii Authors’ contributions ix Dictionary orthography and corresponding IPA symbols xi List of abbreviations xiii Grammatical sketch of Dagaare 1 1 The Dagaare language and Dagaare studies ............ 3 2 Phonology .............................. 4 2.1 Orthography and sound system of Dagaare ....... 4 2.2 Consonants ......................... 4 2.3 Vowels ............................ 6 2.4 Tone ............................. 7 2.5 Phonological processes ................... 8 3 Morphology ............................. 9 3.1 Nominal morphology .................... 10 3.2 Verbal morphology ..................... 18 3.3 Other word classes and morphological processes .... 25 4 Syntax ................................ 28 4.1 Sentence types ....................... 28 4.2 The simple sentence .................... 28 4.3 Complex sentences ..................... 31 4.4 Discourse phenomena ................... 34 References 41 Contents Contents Dagaare dictionary 45 a ....................................... 45 b ....................................... 51 d ....................................... 90 e ....................................... 113 ɛ ....................................... 115 f ....................................... 116 g ....................................... 125 gb ...................................... 134 gy ...................................... 142 h ....................................... 147 i ....................................... 148 k ....................................... 149 kp ...................................... 171 l ....................................... 180 m ...................................... 192 n ....................................... 206 ny ...................................... 224 ŋ ....................................... 232 ŋm ...................................... 232 o ....................................... 237 ɔ ....................................... 238 p ....................................... 239 s ....................................... 259 t ....................................... 278 u ....................................... 295 v ....................................... 296 w ...................................... 304 y ....................................... 312 z ....................................... 323 ii Preface With this work, we present a more expansive dictionary of the Dagaare language than previously available, paired with a grammatical sketch. We have had to make some choices in putting together this dictionary, and the dictionary should not be seen as representing the whole of the Dagaare language in all its variation. Languages are always changing, and this dictionary presents the vocabulary of a particular variety of Dagaare at a particular time. Dagaare is spoken by a large number of people (one million speakers accord- ing to Simons & Fennig 2017, although this may be conservative, see Section 1) and throughout a large area. Dagaare constitutes a dialect continuum which covers mainly the Upper West Region of Ghana. Varieties of the language can be found in the Savanna Region of Ghana. The language is also found in Burk- ina Faso where it is known mainly as Dagara. The Dagaare Language Committee (Dagaare Language Committee 1982) established orthographical conventions and made broad dialect divisions into Northern, Central and Southern Dagaare. Al- though these dialects are mutually intelligible to varying degrees, there is a high degree of variation, even from village to village (Bodomo 1997: 2-5). This dictionary is primarily concerned with the vocabulary of Central Dagaare, spoken around the area of the towns Jirapa and Ullo. This dialect has served as the standard dialect for educational materials in Ghana, church literature and radio broadcasts, and we follow that tradition here. Central Dagaare is also the basis for most linguistic analysis on Dagaare, including the early work of Wil- son (1962), Kennedy (1966) and Hall (1977). Southern Dagaare (also known as Waale) is centered around the towns of Wa and Kaleo and widely used as a trade language throughout the region (Bodomo 1997). While the Central and South- ern dialects overlap to a substantial degree, there are certainly many differences, some of which are noted in this dictionary. Two other relevant dialects lying to the West are Southern Birifor, which is mutually intelligible with Southern Da- gaare, and Safaliba (population 4000) near Bole in the Northern Region, which, according to Simons & Fennig (2017), has a large lexical similarity to Southern Dagaare. It is our hope that the publication of this dictionary will serve as a first step to documenting the diversity of the Dagaare language, and will bring to light lexical and grammatical variation across the varieties of Dagaare. Preface To illustrate, we list several concepts which are expressed by different lexical items in different dialect zones in Table 1. Table 1: Lexical variation across four dialect zones Word/Concept Northern Central Southern Western dance yag seɛ sɛo sɛo footwear nafag nɔɔteɛ nageteɛ nataba grandfather saangkom saangkoma nabaale nabaale groundnuts simmie seŋkãa gyɛnee gyɛnee horse wir wiri wɛo ycho man dɛb dɔɔ dao dao rat dɛrebaa dayuu gbunno gbinti run zɔ zo zɔ gyɔ salt nyaaro nyɛnoŋ/nyɛnoo yaaroŋ yaaroŋ talk/speak ɛr yeli yɛle yɛle tree squirrel telocra lɔnnɔ/lanna lanta anta uncle (maternal) madɛb areba aheba areba Further variation is found in the other direction: One lexical item may have differ- ent meanings in different dialects. We illustrate with the term nabaale which has two different meanings in two different Southern dialects, Waale and Manlaale: • nabaale: ‘grandfather’ (Walee), ‘paternal uncle (older than one’s father)’ (Manlaale) We also note that some entries retain earlier orthographical forms, even though in modern pronunciation a reduced form is current. This is particularly present for weak vowels following ŋ, as in bɛŋe ‘to sift’, which is pronounced [bɛŋ]. We would like to acknowledge the prior lexicographic work on Dagaare, most notably Durand (1953) and Bodomo (2004a), both being works which we have consulted and have attempted to build upon. The structure of the entries The entries in the dictionary are structured as follows. Each entry is followed by (i) its phonetic transcription, including tones, (ii) its part of speech, (iii) its definition in English, (iv) one or more examples in Dagaare illustrating theuse iv Preface of the word and the corresponding translation(s), and (iv) any further inflectional or derivational forms. Due to the nature of this work, the grammatical information contained in the entries is limited. In addition to the sketch grammar provided here, several grammars on Dagaare exist which describe the grammatical features of the lan- guage and other selected topics. We encourage readers to consult Bodomo (1997), Bodomo (2000), Bodomo (2004a,b), and Kropp Dakubu (2005) for further infor- mation on the grammar of Dagaare. Nouns For nouns, the following number forms are given: • pl. — Plural • 2ndpl. — Second Plural (also known as a Distributive Plural) • sg. — Singulative Adjectives Adjectives inflect for number in Dagaare, thus plural and second plural forms are listed when present. Pronouns Pronouns list plural forms, although due to their common occur- rence, the plural forms of pronouns are also given their own main entry. Verbs The verbal entries specify the following six forms at the end of the entry in this order: • Perfect • Imperfect • Agentive Singular • Agentive Plural • Agentive Derivation -aa Singular • Agentive Derivation -aa Plural These forms do not exhaust the derived verbal forms available in Dagaare, such as various nominalizations or derived adjectives, which we plan to incorporate in a future edition of this dictionary. Other parts of speech Adverbs,